Letters To Coordinators' Corner

Creating Greater Consistency in our Business as Wedding Consultants

Creating Greater Consistency in our Business as Wedding Consultants 
Robbi Ernst III (excerpts from Great Wedding Tips From the Experts) 
www.JuneWedding.com 
 
A bride will have as many as fifteen individual companies coming together to work as a team on her wedding day. Who will be the professional, the team leader, overseeing that all of them will accomplish their contracted responsibilities and that the bride can be “as a guest” at her own wedding? Enter the Wedding Consultant! Unfortunately in our industry a Wedding Consultant is known by many names: Bridal Consultant, Wedding Planner, Wedding Specialist, Bridal Consultant, Bridal Planner, Bridal Specialist, etc.... Is it any wonder that Brides and other wedding professionals (sites and vendors) are confused as to what we do, when we can’t even decide as an industry what to call ourselves? Whatsmore, we are muddying the waters more by not having a common term to describe our profession? The bride doesn’t fully realize this reality. So, from the beginning of consideration she confronts obstacles. Not to mention the fact that various vendors are advertising themselves as having a Wedding Consultant, Bridal Consultant, Wedding Specialist, etc...on staff! I propose that we all ban together and realize that the term “Wedding Consultant” best encompasses and most fully identifies who we are and what we do, whereas the other terms mentioned above only deal with different aspects of our work and not one of them in itself, fully or adequately describes all our tasks and work. Please let me say, if you feel very strongly that another term is more adequate, email me and give me your opinion. I am not “married” to this term (pun intended), but am genuinely concerned that we all help one another come up with a term that is more accurate. Since I get alot of my writing published, I will do as much as I can to market whatever term deemed most encompassing. Another inconsistency is the manner in which we refer other professionals. 
 
Most brides have not determined her need, much less the costs, for a Wedding Consultant and reliable vendors for wedding services. Since most people are not used to giving large, formal parties, they don’t even realize the tasks ahead of them. Much less does the bride have the confidence in knowing service providers/vendors in whom she can place her trust for such an important event as her wedding. Even if she does know a few vendors competent to perform their services and their costs, it is very unlikely that these vendors and others that she must hire have worked together at her site(s). Moreover, most brides are at a total loss about how to interview vendors or what questions should be asked before signing a contract. Though she may have an idea as to her priorities for the wedding, she hasn’t had enough experience with them to think about alternatives. It is very likely that she doesn’t have any idea as to what weddings, especially the wedding of her dreams, i.e. her wedding, cost to produce. And all of this is not her fault. 
 
Most of the wedding magazines and books do not give accurate costs of weddings. It has only been in the last couple of years that they began having adequate and informative facts about what a vendor who is a wedding specialist does or should be able to do. Much of this is also our (the Wedding Consultant) fault. Ours is one of the few professions that people can and do go into with the only experience and training being his/her own wedding. It’s a serious problem that so many new Wedding Consultants can’t even afford to get training and education, much less have enough capital to finance the new business adequately. What’s worse, some people have such broad egos that they think that they do not need training and have the audacity to take over the responsibility of planning one of the most important days in a couple’s lives. Some of these new Wedding Consultants are able to see some success after years of struggling. Fortunately for brides and for us who take our profession seriously, but unfortunately for the dream-filled “want-to-be”, most Wedding Consultants fail in the first three years of business or they enroll in business classes at the local community college and take specialized courses for the Wedding Consultant that are offered nationwide by people who have enough experience and knowledge. Some Consultants will brag that they have never attended any classes, that they don’t belong to or participate in any professional associations, or even read the latest books about weddings, and they have been quite successful. I question their definition of success. If someone has been “successful” without education and training, just imagine how much more successful his/her company would be if he/she did get some ongoing education! And by success, I don’t just mean monetarily; but, speaking about money, one of the serious inconsistencies is the manner in which we charge for our services. 
 
Across the country, Wedding Consultants charge in variety of ways. Some charge an hourly rate; some charge a percentage of the fees that the vendors who they have referred charge; some charge a percentage of the entire wedding costs; some charge in a manner that combines the above; some charge a low hourly rate and get “kick-backs” from the vendors they refer. Incidentally, this is illegal and unethical unless the Wedding Consultant is registered as an “Agency”. It also creates a legal bond between the Wedding Consultant and the vendor/site, and, if a lawsuit is filed, the Wedding Consultant can be brought in as a party to the lawsuit since he/she accepted money/gifts from the referred vendor. Still, others charge a flat fee according to the services that have been contracted, i.e. the work that the Consultant actually does (individual meetings, full production, wedding day only). What probably works best is to decide on a method of charging that is the most used in your area of the country. Incidentally, for the Full Production, a competent Wedding Consultant needs to get 15% to 20% of the entire wedding day budget to be successful monetarily and stay in business. 
 
In summary, a Wedding Consultant is de facto a team leader. A good leader is measured by his/her experience and knowledge about his/her field as well as the ability to lead. A Wedding Consultant who doesn’t have an overwhelming ego will take a serious look at how he/she defines herself and realize that if the term (such as bridal consultant, wedding planner, bridal planner, etc...) isn’t sufficient, then he/she needs to take gradual steps to change that term to one that best defines what the company does. 
 
A Wedding Consultant must know the names and craftsmanship (expertise) of vendors and sites in his/her area and their ability to work as a team. Besides knowing how competent the vendor/site is, the Wedding Consultant must know professionals who can work with unrestricted budgets, but as importantly, those who can work with restricted budgets. Familiarity with their charges and contracts is imperative. Whether or not the Wedding Consultant had some training before she opened his/her company, and no matter the stage in his/her business, every one of us can benefit from ongoing education. Each of us really needs to consider ourselves to truly be experts, the best possible Wedding Consultant in our area. One only attains this by constantly being involved with other professionals who can teach us something and who can be taught by us. This is the real reason we join professional organizations. It’s not for the right to use their logo and the words “Member of....” on our printed materials. We should be active members in the association(s) from which we honestly derive benefit and can actively participate in.  
 
Careful and frequent attention and evaluation of our method and the amount that we charge for our services should be done every year. There is no reason why a Wedding Consultant should be timid about his/her rates. The important thing is that our charges be honest and fair and show a profit. No less than once a year, we should take a look at our Profit and Loss Statement to determine if we need to raise our fees. Think about it, we don’t put a sticker on anything; normally our fees are not on mass produced documents, so we have alot of flexibility. It should be clear to people what our rates are and how we can be hired. Don’t be afraid of publishing your rates/fees. You can do it in a manner that doesn’t “box you in”. For instance, you can always use a “range” of fees, e.g. “Our rates are between $5,000 and $7,000 for a Full Production’; or, better still, “our Full Production rates start at $5,000”; or, “for an Individual Consultation, our rates start at $350”. You can, when you have enough information, commit to a more definite, exact fee.  
 
There is no need to feel guilty about charging for our services. After all, our clients are paying for our expertise, accumulated knowledge and artistic input. They are also paying for our experience. We know what works and doesn’t work at certain sites or with specific vendors. We are able to advise and direct the bride about schedules, timelines, finances and contracts. While it’s fair to go into the business because we loved planning our own wedding, we can’t be solely dependent upon that for our rationale. Wedding Consultation is a business; albeit, a “happy event” business. A bride deserves the very best direction and advice that she can possibly get. Notice, I didn’t say “that we can possibly give”. A bride deserves the best possible guidance that she can get! And, that means reading magazines’ articles, not just looking at the ads for gowns; it means reading books; it means taking on responsibility and volunteering our services with the association(s) that we belong to and becoming active and not just “in name only” members; it means being able to clearly and distinctly give our “commercial” to people when they ask us: “What do you do as a Wedding Consultant”? Not just to potential clients, but also to vendors and site managers; it means attending lectures and seminars; it means asking questions and providing advice on websites such as CoordinatorsCorner.com; it means offering the best referrals possible to our clients. It means alot of things, and most of all, it means being experts in our field. 
 
It is very important that we “oldies” who are Wedding Consultants, be much more generous and kind to the “newbies” who want to have a career as Wedding Consultants. I hope I live long enough to see the day when others in the industry do not use that term “wanna-be” condescendingly, but rather view people who are new to the industry (“Want-to-bes”) more as colleagues than as competition. There’s absolutely no reason to see a new Wedding Consultant as a threat. If we are doing our jobs right, then it will be a long time before a new person setting out his/her shingle and opening an office across the street from us, is going to overtake our company. Time alone is on the “oldies” side. There really are no trade secrets besides working hard/honestly and learning as much as we can. Granted, we can’t be spending all our time educating our colleagues/competition; there are good, competent and structured programs/courses that we can refer them to. Most importantly, while part of our desire to be entrepreneurs is “fun” and “exciting”, we have a major responsibility to make certain that the business is profitable. We can’t pay the bills with “fun” and “excitement”. Creating greater consistency in what we call ourselves, how we manage and run our individual companies means being part of a greater whole. And “the whole” that we all strive for, is steadfastly increasing the quality of our services and sharing that with other parts of our industry so that we function as a unit.  
 
Robbi Ernst III 
June Wedding, Inc. 
www.JuneWedding.com